Category: Celebrity Rand Fans

A brief article in the Chicago Tribune reports that actor Vince Vaughn‘s favorite book is Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead.
Vaughn co-stars in the new movie Wedding Crashers, due out in theaters tomorrow, July 15th.
From the Trib article:

The actor, who grew up in Lake Forest and recently moved to Chicago, was asked to name some favorites by InStyle magazine. He says his favorite book is “The Fountainhead” by Ayn Rand and his favorite film that he was in is “Swingers.” He won’t reveal his favorite government leader, though.
“I keep my politics to myself–I am just an actor making movies.”

Heh. Nice quality in an actor.
Vaughn also played Mr. Smith’s best friend (the guy who still lives with his mother) in Mr. & Mrs. Smith.
UPDATE: Wedding Crashers earns a good review from Roger Friedman over at FoxNews. Excerpts:

David Dobkin’s “Wedding Crashers,” a comedy from New Line, looks like it’s a big, freakin’ comedy hit.
It’s also rated R because it’s a little raunchy and very politically incorrect.
Nevertheless, Dobkin gets the best performances to date out of Vince Vaughn ? for whom this could be a breakout role ? and Owen Wilson. Luckily, he had a good script by Steve Faber and Bob Fisherto work with.
Vince took it in stride when I mentioned that he stole the movie, which isn’t an easy thing to do when Owen Wilson is around.
In between the riotously funny R-rated scenes, there are some nice character touches that give “Crashers” unexpected texture. It’s a perfect summer date movie.

UPDATE: Johnathan Pearce (writing for Samizdata.net) calls Wedding Crashers “two of the funniest hours [I’ve] spent at cinema in quite a while” and “an outrageous, politically incorrect, deplorable romp of a movie, the perfect tonic for these unpleasant times.”

Atlasphere member Marsha Enright sent the following note after perusing the new Ayn Rand Library auction:

I noticed that she had a book by James Clavell, Noble House! For those who don’t know him, he wrote Shogun, Taipan and a number of other wonderful historical novels. From his second novel, businessmen are depicted as adventurous, amazing heroes [e.g., see his novels Taipan, Noble House, Whirlwinds]. I always wondered if he was influenced by Rand, and his inscription to her in the book he sent her proves that!

According to the item description, Clavell inscribed the following in Ayn Rand’s copy of Noble House:

This is for Ayn Rand
–one of the real, true talents on this earth for which many, many thanks
James C
New York
2 Sept 81

A new interview with IndiaFM reveals that Indian model and actress Preity Zinta is a huge fan of Ayn Rand’s The Fountainhead:

So is there any particular book that she did recommend as a ‘must-read’? “Don’t know if it would do the same to others, but it definitely changed my perspective about life” she declares. And the miracle book is� “Ayn Rand’s Fountainhead” she replies.
“My dad gifted me the book when I was in the 8th standard” she says. “Not that I made sense of it then but I loved the character of Howard Roark. He is a strong, able guy who overcomes big storms in his life. I loved that trait in him” she points out. “I must have read it several times over the years and each time I am filled with admiration for Howard for the way he lived life with steely determination & endurance” she points out.

We noted in March of last year that Michigan State University women’s basketball coach Joanne McCallie is a huge fan of Dagny Taggart.
She’s been a busy woman during the past year, and was recently named Big 10 Coach of the Year (her fourth such award).
Earlier this month she was also named the Associated Press Coach of the Year:

McCallie, in her fifth season at MSU, has led the Spartans to the greatest season in school history. Michigan State is making its first appearance in the Final Four after having never been past the second round previously. The Spartans won a share of their second-ever Big Ten regular season title with a school-best 14-2 league record and won their first ever Big Ten Tournament title.
McCallie has guided the Spartans to a 32-3 record, smashing the previous school record for wins in a season (23). MSU is in the midst of a school-record 16-game winning streak and had its best-ever home record with a 13-0 mark at the Breslin Center. The Spartans have beaten 12 nationally-ranked teams, easily surpassing the previous school record of five in one season. Among the Spartans’ victims have been No. 1-ranked Stanford, No. 2-ranked Ohio State and No. 3-ranked Notre Dame, marking the first times MSU has ever beaten teams with those national rankings.

Yesterday her team lost the national title game to Baylor, but McCallie plans to stay in the limelight with a fresh round of high-profile recruits for next year’s season.
We’ll be working to see if we can get an interview soon with this prominent fan of Atlas Shrugged. Stay tuned.

From the Wisconsin State Journal’s coverage of the Madison Area Music Awards:

Saturday night’s second-annual Madison Area Music Awards ceremony was professional, streamlined and entertaining.
Madison musicians and fans nearly filled the 1,300-seat Union Theater as the award categories zigzagged across numerous genres. Even the nominees’ wardrobes were eclectic. Best underage artist Brittany Hayes wore a Grammy-worthy evening gown, while best new artist Dafino displayed thrift- store fashion.

And why would we care? Because this happened:

Presenter Sybil Augustine of community radio station WORT-FM delivered a well- received diatribe against the FCC, and Shinky of the punk band New Recruits gave his best Liam Gallagher impersonation while decrying the city’s upcoming smoking ban. The show’s only moment of awkward silence came after J.P. Roney of best overall artist and best acoustic artist winners and performers The Profits thanked, among many other things, “the philosophy of Ayn Rand.”

I have no idea who The Profits are, but it’s certainly enough to raise one’s curiosity about the band.
UPDATE: You can learn about the band at www.theprofitsband.com, where this bio appears for JP Roney:

John Paul Roney – vocals, acoustic guitar, piano
JP is a Senior at UW Madison majoring in Pre-Law. He started singing at the age of 5 in The Madison Boy Choir, traveling to Japan and Greece to sing for up to 300,000 spectators as a soloist, and performed a lead role in an opera with the Milwaukee Symphony Orchestra starring alongside Metropolitan Opera star Kit Foss. In 1995 he was selected to sing in the National Honors Choir comprised of the top 100 singers in America, who performed for President Clinton in the White House. In high school, he had a daily guest spot on Madison’s 92.1 WMAD radio as goat boy, performing and writing comic skits. He began college studying opera performance until he picked up the guitar and switched majors. His influences include folk, alternative rock and hip-hop.

His bio also includes a promotion of Atlas Shrugged and a link to the web site of our very own Sarah Saturday, whom we interviewed here about a year ago.
The Profits web site includes downloadable mp3s of their music. Check out “Sex at Six” if you want a grin. (There’s a live version available and a studio version too. The studio version is easier to hear.) For some nice acoustic guitar work, listen to “High Horse” and “Margot.”

Eva Mendes, the beautiful co-star of the new movie “Hitch” as well as several other popular films, is a Rand fan — or, at least, she likes her men to be.
In an interview with The Philippine Star, Miss Mendes was asked, “What kind of guys do you find attractive?” and her answer was: “Those who have self-confidence, ambitious and lovable. If he reads Ayn Rand, so much the better.”
Hopefully, Miss Mendes will sign up for the Atlasphere’s Ayn Rand dating service.
Read the full interview…

In October I wrote about the hip-hop morning show duo Star and Buc Wild, pointing out that Star is a fan of Ayn Rand’s writings.
Today I received a phone call from Star, from which I gleaned several things:
1. The biographical material that I cited in my original posting is not actually written by Star. (This was what prompted his call.) Rather, it was written by someone else who adapted publicly available material into a fake first-person account of Star’s past. When I told Star I hadn’t been very impressed by what I’d read, he said, “I wouldn’t be, either.”
2. A more accurate picture of Star and his ideas can be gathered from an interview with him on the Star and Buc Wild web site. (Click on “Exclusive Star Interview” after you get into the site.) The importance of Ayn Rand’s philosophy is emphasized throughout the interview. Philosophical purists, however, will not be happy.
3. Today the NY Daily News published a new profile of Star. From the article:

Star returned to New York radio yesterday with his tongue sharpened, vowing on the Power-105 morning show that he would take out Howard Stern, crush rival Hot-97 and “bring the truth to New York radio.”
He also tossed around the N-word, told the city to “bend over” and warned those who are not his friends they could be the target of an aggressive sexual act.
Welcome back to the Star and Buc Wild package, last heard on WQHT (97.1 FM) in May 2003 and now inked for four years at WWPR (105.1 FM).
“Somebody said you were looking for me,” he said as he signed on at 6 a.m. yesterday.
Clear Channel, WWPR’s parent, expects Star to push Power past Hot-97 and become the city’s top rap station. But Star made it clear his own vision extends to the national vacancy that will be created when Stern skips to satellite next year.
“Hip-hop wars, don’t waste my time,” Star said. “I came for the long-haired [homosexual] down the dial, Howard Stern.”

Apparently Star hopes to fill the void left on national morning talk radio when Stern moves to XM next year.
My take? During our call, Star sounded pleasant and intelligent (not incoherent, the way the All Hip Hop fake bio made him sound, or belligerant, as he sounds in the quotes from his radio show).
He uses the word “hater” often, and sometimes in a positive context. Star seems to view hate as a kind of natural energy (perhaps like the Freudian id) that can be channeled for constructive purposes. In his view, an “Objective hater” is potentially a person of great purpose and passion.
Personally, I’d be happy if his interest in Rand’s work helps introduce more blacks like himself (or “man of color,” as he prefers, for its individualistic connotations) to Ayn Rand’s ideas.

From an article in the LATimes about Dodgers General Manager Paul DePodesta:

The primary architect of the Dodger roster is not the owner of one year but rather the general manager of 11 months, soft-spoken, unassuming Paul DePodesta, who turned all of 32 last month and is looking forward to his only child’s first birthday this month.
Architect is a description the Harvard-educated DePodesta would find flattering because the fictional character he admires most is Howard Roark, the fiercely independent architect in Ayn Rand’s 1943 novel, “The Fountainhead.”
Roark dismissed traditional methods and stood by his radical designs in the face of severe criticism. Rand presented him as a man of extraordinary conviction, and, no surprise here, Gary Cooper played him in the movie.
Fans alarmed at the wholesale shakeup of the Dodgers probably feel DePodesta is more interested in detonating dynamite than in drawing up the blueprint for a winning team. Not that he would be insulted ? Roark too blew things up when he deemed it necessary.
Tradition? Ka-boom! Time-honored methods? Ka-bluwee!
“There are a lot of things we do because that’s the way we’ve always done them, and I do my best to not accept that as an explanation,” DePodesta said. “Circumstances change and you have to be proactive about changing with those circumstances.”

See the full article for additional information.